Maths 'genius' Maryam Mirzakhani dies, aged 40

Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian-born mathematician who was the first woman to win the coveted Fields Medal, died Saturday in a US hospital after a battle with cancer.Mirzakhani's friend Firouz Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA, announced her death on Instagram.Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford University in California, died after the cancer she had been battling for four years spread to her bone marrow, Iranian media said.